


On Call

by cabarets



Category: Code Blue: Doctor Heli Kinkyuu Kyuumei
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 10:23:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20758826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabarets/pseuds/cabarets
Summary: “Aizawa?” she says into the receiver,“Shiraishi,”





	On Call

It was unexpected.

Shiraishi was at home, in her bed, trying to fall asleep. It was late at night and she was tired but she just couldn’t sleep — tossing and turning. So she decides to get out of bed and find something mind-numbing to do. She let herself relax and placed herself in her living room couch. She was about to turn on her television set, when her mobile starts to vibrate. 

> _Kosaku Aizawa is calling…_

It was unexpected, to say the least. Was there something wrong? Aizawa usually prefers to call her, yes. However, it was the first time he called _this _late. She answers his call anyway, knowing that Aizawa only ever had interesting things to say.

“Aizawa?” she says into the receiver,

“Shiraishi,”

“Hello,” she repeats, “is there something wrong?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong,” he says slowly,

“Oh,”

“I know you have an early morning shift, but is it okay if we just talk for awhile?”

“Sure,”

“You’re not busy or anything?”  
  
“No, I couldn’t fall asleep actually. I was just going to watch something on the TV until I get the feeling back, but I think talking to you is an even better idea.”

“Why don’t you tell me about your day then?” you can hear him adjust his position through the phone,

She tells him a couple of things that had happened earlier during her shift, but as soon as she heard him cough — she stops.  
  
“Do you have a cold?” her voice filled with concern, “Maybe we could talk about it in the morning? Rest for now, yes?”

“No, I think it’s about time,”

“About time for what?”

“Just listen to me for a moment, alright?” he rasps,

“Okay,”

“Megumi Shiraishi, I think I’m a little bit in love with you.”

“What?”

“I think I’m a little bit more than that. I think I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember.”

It took awhile for Shiraishi to speak, the lump in her throat taking too much time to subside. She screwed her eyes shut in her bewilderment. Aizawa was in love with her? Kosaku Aizawa was in love with her. She thought that her heart was reverberating through her body — you could probably hear it from afar. What could that possibly mean?

“I — I don’t know what to say to that, Aizawa.”

“You don’t need to say anything,” his voice softer now, 

“Why now?”

“I—” he falters, “I just thought I’d say it.”

Shiraishi then listens close enough, Aizawa’s breathing sounded a little bit hollow, as if struggling. Something tells her that there’s something wrong, but she hasn’t figured out what. As she tried to think about the possible — steam. Steam and an engine.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Aizawa?” her voice a little bit more frantic now, getting out of her seat, “where are you?”

He was driving back to Tokyo that night from Nagaoka, the roads quite silent. The next thing as the red lights turned green, he saw the bright headlights coming into him. It was quick, sudden, he wouldn’t really know how to react — his mind was buzzing and felt blood trickle down his face. He felt a sharp pain all over his body, on the lower part of his body especially — then numbness. He wasn’t alright. He wasn’t alright at all. He was a doctor, he knows the damage that has been done — self-diagnosing amidst that chaos. He exhales deeply then and with that, Aizawa made up his mind on two things:

The first is that he’s not going to survive this.

The second is to tell Megumi Shiraishi about how he felt about her.

So instead of calling the emergency line, he calls her with all the strength and focus he has left — and now here we are.

“No, I don’t think I am,” he says — you could tell it was done with substantial effort on his part.

As he inhales to say something else, to ease her worries — he ended up coughing, which included a little bit of blood. It was the least of his concerns — Shiraishi most likely heard that, heard him in pain, which wasn’t good at all.

“Aizawa, please tell me where you are,” her voice in panic, scurrying her way to the entryway of her apartment — keys in tow, “please.”

She ran out of her apartment like she was on duty. She was an emergency flight doctor, Lifesaving’s staff leader — it was instinct at this point. Her phone was still glued to her ear — she could still hear him breathing.

“Aizawa,” her voice pleading, “stay with me please,”

He lets himself think about Shiraishi, how her demeanour would change whenever she received a call from the emergency hotline, the way her eyes would spark up when they’d argue when she thought he was going overboard with the way he spoke to the fellows, but they would always make up so easily — how she would sit out on the helipad when she wanted to think, how her hair would flow with the wind, how she wouldn’t mind being alone with him. In his last moments, her voice is now bringing him peace. It’s enough. It has to be.

If he was being honest, he really hated the world right now.

“I wish I could,” the words stumble as he pronounces them, his vision starting to go.

_Megumi, It’s unbelievable really— to be parted from you. I thought it would be better this way, but it isn’t. There will come a day where you'll forget the colour of my eyes — but that's alright, because I know I'll never forget yours._

Then Aizawa dies, with thoughts of forgiveness and of Megumi Shiraishi. He forgave the world, for it still had her. He dies. He dies bringing everything he thought, everything he felt with him — vanishing forever.

Shiraishi fell to the floor as she heard, she felt his last breath escape him and she wept — never letting her phone leave her ear, staying on the call. She heard the sirens of the ambulance coming in through the line — but she knew then it was too late. Aizawa would’ve called if he knew he’d survive.

* * *

She saves people for a living. That was a fact.

Shiraishi reaches Shohoku as they just received the call for people involved in a drunk driving accident, a hit and run — they tried to revive him, however he expired in transit. They didn’t really say any specifics on who it was, however she knew that the victim was Aizawa. She listens momentarily for the details but rushes through the emergency exits waiting for the ambulance to come. She did not even bother to change, just merely taking off her coat and throwing it at the corner, grabbing gloves as she went on her way — she doesn’t even realise until that she’d been wearing house slippers the whole time. 

_Aizawa._

As the stretcher was put down on the tarmac, hauling him out the ambulance. Shiraishi runs and falls toward him — the rest of Lifesaving just stood there, surrounding her. Cursing under their breaths as they realised who it was, if you looked closer — their faces were slowly losing their colour. There was nothing they could do for him anymore.

“Aizawa? Can you hear me?” she grabs him by his blood-stained shirt, her voice finally finding her, “Aizawa, wake up please.”

She gives him a couple shakes more, suspended in her own disbelief. But there was nothing. He did not wake.

“Aizawa, please,” she tried to wipe her eyes with the heels of her hands but eventually gave up and let her tears run free, “please,”

In her disbelief, she looks down and leans forward to kiss Aizawa on his forehead softly, truly — and pulls away. She did not even care if there were people watching her — there was no point in being prideful now. Pride doesn’t matter. Pride doesn’t matter when it’s on the ground.

She strokes gently and followed the natural lines of his face, as if wanting to commit them to memory. Her once steady hands now a bit shaky, as she runs them through his mouth. Carelessly, she leans once more and kisses him on his lips. She kisses him deeply, sincerely — she kisses him like it would bring him back and pulls herself away quickly as a hiccuping sob escapes her.

She wonders if he’d wake up now like how they did in fairytales. His lips were soft but rough, chapped around the edges. He tasted like blood. He tasted like regret.

After a few more minutes, Shiraishi finally had the strength to tear herself away from him and she let them move him. She watches them wheel him and as the hospital doors close and swallows him in. In the eerie silence, the tears grapples on her face, and she looks up to the moonless sky, reflecting the emptiness she felt.

She saves people for a living. She couldn’t save him. It was one of her life’s little ironies.

* * *

It would’ve been better for her to talk about it, but Shiraishi had a different reaction to her devastation. 

For days, Shiraishi did not sleep. She did her work as usual, but she did not sleep. When it crept up on her — she’d always be sorry to have woken up. There was nothingness when she was asleep. There weren’t any dreams — only darkness.

Shiraishi started to hate going to work. She hated it. Not because she hated what she did for a living, it was quite the opposite — she loved it. She just couldn’t bare to do the things she loved. She felt like she didn’t know anything. Nothing worked for her. She started to get nothing out of anything.

The only thing she did know is that she’d have done anything to be beside him that night, be him that night — so that Aizawa had survived rather than herself.

But she wasn’t.

When the time came, people at Aizawa’s service talked about a woman in her best clothes who stood there, greeted everyone and accepted their condolences. Her face was stricken with grief, but she was undeniably beautiful — she hasn’t shed a tear throughout but remnants of it were across her face, glistening when the light would hit her. _Was she family?_ was what everyone was trying to figure out. However, Aizawa did not really have any surviving relatives, apart from his father who he was estranged to. Aizawa was not married. They kept these questions to themselves, but they all agreed on one thing — there was something about her that people were drawn to, like she knew him more than anyone else.

She was asked to give a few words but she refused politely. Not that she didn’t know how. She could go on on how brilliant he was — despite his temper and cold demeanour. She could go on about how he didn’t say much, but everything that came out of his mouth was of substance. She could go on about how he always had good advice — even if his delivery of it was sometimes off putting. She could go on about how he never failed to take her breath away. She could go on on how her life has change upon meeting him — how his presence in her life always felt like a warm glow.

None of them, nonetheless, could come out of her.

Not that she wasn’t capable. She was capable. However, she just could not say goodbye. She wasn’t capable of doing that yet.

* * *

As she arrived back from Nagaoka, she walked from the station to the hospital, slowly — losing count every other step.

Slow.

She knew where to go, but she ended up taking tons of detours. Not really caring that it was really late at night and it was starting to get close to daybreak. Maybe it was a little bit reckless, she knew this.

She ended up at the helipad like she would — unaware how she got there, unaware on how much time had past. A light breeze runs past her once in awhile, reminding her that she could still feel, that she was still alive. As she leaned on the railing she just let herself think about it — think about him.

“Aizawa,” his name escapes her lips like a prayer — whispered, sacred.

Shiraishi wanted to talk to him about many things. She wanted to talk to him about work, about how he should learn to really control his temper— about anything really. She realises again that she now couldn’t do that anymore. Shiraishi then felt the unfairness of it all, the injustice. The injustice of potentially loving someone so deeply, but now can't because they’re now dead. Her hands now clutching close to her chest.

She wondered what it was like to be touched by him now knowing he loved her. To be smiled at — laugh with. To be looked at. The intensity of his eyes. The ambiguity of them when they look at her — invasive yet vulnerable at the same time.

But she didn’t have to imagine.

She knew it. He always made her feel safe, like he really had her back. She knew that he loved her. She knew deep down that she loved him too. She just realised too late what kind of love it was. Love that didn’t need the loud declarations, the grand gestures — those fade and are the one’s you eventually forget. It was love that was quiet. Quiet like breath. Comfortable in silences.

She feels the wind blowing away all of the troubles, and let herself revisit memories, feelings — intense moments that she has lived through. She closes her eyes and exhales — letting herself be one with her thoughts, sending her call to the wind.

_Aizawa, I can’t believe that you’re gone — but you are. We could’ve had a whole lot of adventures still ahead of us, maybe if we had more time I would’ve discovered how to love you. We might not have been able to be together and the possibility of that is in the highest unlikelihood, but that doesn’t mean no love exists — because there was._

As she opens her eyes, she sees Aizawa in his entirety looking directly at her— as if he’s beside her again.

_Kosaku Aizawa, I think I was a little bit in love with you too._

Then, as the sun rises, she let him go. The wind picking up around her, whipping the hair around her eyes— she thought that the wind was unusually warm for the dawn.

Shiraishi lived on. That’s what he would’ve wanted her to do.

Still, no matter how much she thought she has progressed, how much time had went on, she would think of him in passing. At first, she would hesitate — the pain would come in waves, but slowly, it had a whole new meaning to it. Time does that for you. Time spent loving is never time wasted, even if things don’t work the way you want to — its about gratefulness for the beautiful while they lasted. Even if it only lasted for a phone call.

She will always remember his smile — and she’ll smile.

**Author's Note:**

> got bored. wanted to kill aizawa, wbk. i'm also v impulsive so are u even surprised?


End file.
